by Jane Blythe
“Why don’t you come and have lunch with me and Annabelle tomorrow?” Sofia suggested. “You can catch up with us and Sophie.”
Paige was all set to politely decline, but the look in Sofia’s silvery grey eyes stopped her. As guilty as she knew Ryan felt over her attack, she knew Sofia’s guilt was a hundred times worse. Sofia blamed herself because it was her stalker who had then become obsessed with Paige. It didn’t matter how many times Paige told her it wasn't her fault, Sofia believed it was. “Yeah, okay.” She smiled at Sofia. “So, Ryan says you two have a new case,” she said to Jack and Rose.
“Yeah, a doozy,” Jack grimaced as he returned from the kitchen with dinner.
“Want to tell us about it?” Paige pressed.
“Can't wait to be back, huh?” Jack asked her, chuckling.
She shrugged. “I'm bored. So, tell us about your case.”
“Elias?” Jack looked to her husband. “You mind us talking about work?”
“No, I don’t mind. Working a case seems to help Paige relax,” Elias answered.
She shot her husband a grateful smile. What he’d said was true. Working cases, working to fix other people’s problems, made her feel better about her own.
As they all dished up spaghetti Bolognese onto their plates, Jack and Rose explained about their case. As she listened to them talk, Paige could feel herself slowly start to relax. Her mind took a break from worrying, from obsessing over paying attention to everything that happened around her, and she focused on the case.
Feeling eyes on her, she looked over to see Elias watching her. Sensing her tension ease, he had relaxed, too. Reaching over to grasp his hand, she was very grateful for her husband’s unwavering support. Elias, her friends, and her work—that was what was going to get her through this.
JULY 21st
3:31 A.M.
Jessica Elgar was dreaming.
Pleasant dreams.
A hand pressing something to her face ripped her from sleep.
As her eyes popped open, she saw a face hovering above her.
A real face.
A real man.
Here in her bedroom.
The hand on her face was holding a cloth against her mouth and nose. With a sense of horror, she realized that this man was trying to knock her unconscious. The cloth on her face smelled sweet. Wasn't that chloroform?
Taking a breath, Jessica tried to hold it. If she could just not breathe in the chemical, then it couldn’t affect her. But it didn’t do any good. She couldn’t hold her breath indefinitely and the man wasn't budging.
With a desperate whimper, she drew in a shuddering breath.
Why did this man want to knock her out?
Did he want to rape her? Kidnap her? Kill her?
Panic began to course through her, but before she could even think of trying to struggle free, her limbs began to tingle with numbness. Then her vision began to fade. And despite her best efforts to fight it, unconsciousness washed over her.
When Jessica ever so slowly began to be aware of her surroundings once more, it took her a moment to comprehend where she was and what was happening to her.
The room was no longer dark. The surface beneath her was no longer soft. The room she was in was no longer her bedroom. Now she was in the kitchen. And the reason the surface beneath her was no longer soft was because she was lying on her dining table.
Why was she in the kitchen on her table?
Had she had too much to drink last night?
No, that seemed unlikely. She wasn't a big drinker; in fact, she usually didn’t drink at all when they went out. Plus, it wasn't the weekend, and if she went out, she never did on a work night.
Maybe Jerry knew why she was here.
No, she reminded herself. Jerry wasn't sleeping here tonight. He’d been away on business the last few days. His plane wouldn’t get in until tomorrow. Or today. Depending on what time it was.
Maybe she was sick.
But if she was sick, why would she be in the kitchen? Wouldn’t she have gone to bed? Or at least be in the bathroom.
She had to figure out what was going on.
As she went to move, her shock addled brain had to finally accept what it had been irrationally denying. She wasn't drunk, or sick. There had been a man. In her bedroom. The man had made her inhale something to knock her out. Then while she had been unconscious, he had brought her into her kitchen and tied her to her table. Ropes secured her wrists and ankles to the table legs. The rough fibers tore at her flesh as she made what she knew was a futile attempt at freeing herself.
There was rope across her stomach, too, she realized, as she could feel it rubbing her skin as she wiggled and squirmed. She shouldn’t be able to feel the rope on her skin. She was wearing pajamas. A glance at her body confirmed what she already knew would be the case.
Her pajamas had been removed while she was out cold.
Her underwear was still in place, though.
Maybe he didn’t intend to rape her.
Maybe he had already raped her.
No. She forced herself to calm down. It didn’t feel like anyone had invaded her.
If he had left her underwear on, then he wasn't going to sexually assault her. But he was going to do something to her.
No one went to the trouble of breaking into someone’s home in the middle of the night, knocking them unconscious, then tying them up if they didn’t intend to do something to them. Something bad.
Suddenly, it occurred to her to scream for help.
She tried to open her mouth to yell for help, only to realize that she had been gagged. Something had been stuffed inside her mouth, and then tape had been used to keep her mouth closed. Try as she might, all she could produce were the quietest of muffled grunts. No one was going to hear that. Not even in an apartment building.
How had she not noticed the gag immediately?
Because she was in shock, she reminded herself.
Jessica’s every instinct was to burst into fits of uncontrollable crying, but she couldn’t. That would spell her death quicker than anything that man planned on doing to her. She couldn’t afford to let her nose get stuffed up because she would suffocate. Suffocation could occur anyway. She would have to keep part of her focus on making sure whatever had been stuffed into her mouth didn’t block off her airways. The rest of her focus would be on trying to get herself out of this.
How exactly she was going to do that, she wasn't quite sure.
Brute force wasn't going to get her out of these ropes. They had been tied securely, and fighting against them was only going to cause her further injury. Talking her way out didn’t seem much of an option either. There was no way she could attempt to connect with her assailant when she couldn’t even utter a word.
But she couldn’t give up.
She never gave up.
And she had been through a lot in her forty-four years.
Her childhood had been rough. An absent dad and an alcoholic mother. No siblings to rely on, she had gotten out on her own as soon as she could manage. She worked two part-time jobs while studying. And the day that she had been offered a lecturing position at the university where she had obtained her master’s degree was one of the happiest of her life. Second only to her wedding day. She hadn’t dated much in her younger years; her priority had been forging out a good life for herself. But when she’d met Jeb Hughes, her life had changed dramatically. Married just six months after they met, for a while her life had been like a fairytale.
Until the day they had been mugged.
Walking back to their car after dinner at a restaurant one night, a teenager high on drugs had accosted them in an alley. He’d had a gun. He’d shot them even though they had given him everything he asked for. Her husband had been shot in the head; she had been shot in the back.
After that, life had never been the same.
Following months of surgeries and physical therapy, she had learned to walk again, but the pain of losing her bel
oved husband had never gone away. She’d become addicted to painkillers. Almost lost her job. But then she’d met Jerry Cutler. He’d helped her get clean. He’d helped her stay clean. And then he’d helped her move on with her life. She’d never forget, or stop loving Jeb, but she had found happiness again.
And now, she might lose it.
All because of some lunatic she didn’t even know.
The face she’d seen in her bedroom before she’d passed out hadn’t been familiar. She’d never seen that man before in her life. So why was he doing this to her? She hadn’t done anything to him; she didn’t even know him. What possible reason could he have for tying her up?
“Ah, Jessica, you're awake,” a soft voice spoke.
The sound of it made her jump. Or would have, if she were able to move her body. All she could move was her head, and she turned it in the direction the voice had come from. Standing beside the table was a man. To all intents and purposes, an innocuous looking man. If she’d come across him on the street, she would never have guessed he was some sort of sadistic maniac.
Slowly penetrating her terrified haze was the realization that he knew her name. Which meant he knew her. But she’d never met him, so how did he know her?
Jessica tried to talk to him. To beg him to let her go. To ask him what he wanted from her. To ask him why he was doing this to her. To ask him what he was planning on doing to her. But all she could muster were hysterical sounding moans.
The man chuckled and stroked her hair. “I can't understand you, Jessica.”
She tried desperately to flinch away from his touch. She tilted her head as far away from his hand as she could manage, but it did no good. Her binds left her helpless. Helpless to do anything to save herself. Helpless to stop him doing to her what he wished. The thought made her feel physically sick. Desperately, Jessica fought the urge to throw up. Vomiting would cause her to asphyxiate.
As long as she was alive, she had hope. She had to cling to that.
“Okay, Jessica, we have to move quickly,” the man announced. “Usually, I wouldn’t do this in such a public place with so many people around us. But I don’t really have a choice. I have to do this here. That’s why I had to gag you. Usually, I'd be happy for you to scream as much as you wanted.”
Panic was coursing quickly through her veins now. This man wanted her to scream. He wanted her to suffer. He’d obviously done this to others before. Just what did he have planned for her?
“Do you smoke, Jessica?” he asked as he pulled out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter.
He looked at her so intently that she realized he actually wanted an answer. So, she shook her head.
“Me neither, a disgusting habit,” he continued as he pulled a cigarette from the packet and lit it. For a moment he just stood there, staring at the glowing orange circle. Following his gaze, Jessica too stared at the burning cigarette, allowing it to mesmerize her. Eventually, he roused himself. “They do serve their purpose, though.”
Horrified understanding dawned as the man moved the lit cigarette toward her arm. He was going to burn her. The calm she had managed to cling to despite her terror evaporated and she completely lost it. She thrashed violently against her bindings, knowing it was pointless, but desperate to get away from this man and what he was about to do to her.
When the cigarette made contact with her flesh, the stinging pain had her shrieking as loudly as she could through her gag.
She was more prepared for the next burn, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
One look in the eyes that watched her had her heart dropping. This man was enjoying every second of inflicting pain on her.
Jessica knew she wasn't walking out of her apartment alive.
* * * * *
8:47 A.M.
“That’s three now.” Jack felt helpless. Three days in a row, three crimes, one location. That the victims themselves were the targets now seemed unlikely. What were the chances that someone had come into contact with Tarek Milford, Judith Barclay, and Jessica Elgar someplace other than where they lived? The building was the link. They knew it; they just didn’t know why.
“He’s all over the board, though,” Rose said. “Murder, then rape, then torture—it’s impossible to get a read on him.”
“He’s not disorganized, though,” Jack continued. “He may leave behind forensic evidence, but it’s more because he knows it won't lead us anywhere than because he never considered it.”
“I agree.” Rose nodded. “He’s smart and he’s planned this out. He brought with him everything he needed, he didn’t use things he simply came across in the victims’ apartments.”
“One violent crime and we assume it’s about the victim. Two violent crimes in the same location and we assume there must be a connection between them. Three violent crimes in the same location and we have to assume the victims are not the perpetrator’s primary concern. Apartment 1J, then 2J, then 3J, the connection seems to be the building, but he used Judith’s name, so he knew her. And if he knew her, then he most likely knew Tarek Milford and Jessica Elgar, too.”
“There’s a personal element to the crimes, as well,” Rose continued his theory. “The knife to the heart seems personal. And when he was raping Judith Barclay, he told her not to be stupid. He could have killed her if he wanted to, but it was like he didn’t want to. He wanted to leave her alive so he didn’t want her to be stupid and force his hand, make him kill her to protect himself.”
“And the level of torture on Jessica Elgar, that was over-the-top and not in keeping with either of his other victims. It displayed a huge level of anger. Even if the connection is the apartment building, he still chose these victims for a reason. And his victimology is all over the map. He goes from old man, to young girl, to middle aged woman–he’s not fixated on them because they represent a particular type of person. It’s something else that brought them to his attention,” Jack contemplated.
“He also gets in and out of the apartments without anyone seeing him,” Rose added. “He’s confident in his abilities. He’s not worried that someone is going to come across him. There were no broken windows, no jimmied locks; it’s like he just walked through the front door.”
“Too bad the building doesn’t have cameras in the hallways, just the entrance points and main foyer.” Jack couldn’t see an end to this case coming anytime soon. “Then we’d have an exact description of who this guy is.”
“We had cops on the building last night, none of them reported anyone suspicious.”
“We discussed the possibility of him being a resident of the building before, only then we thought it was too risky for someone to be killing in their own building, but I think now we have to look seriously at that possibility.”
“I agree,” Rose concurred. “I think we need to start running background checks on all the residents, see if anything pops.”
“That’s an awful lot of people to run checks on.” Jack was feeling defeated before they even started. There would be thousands of people to have to check out.
“Well, we have to do something,” Rose pressed.
“We need something to narrow it down. We need a direction to focus on. We should check out the doorman first; they would have contact with everyone in the building and the means to get inside the apartments.”
“There’re only four doormen–that’s not too many to check out and we already have criminal checks on them. All four turned up clean. We should make appointments to talk with them though, maybe something will turn up.”
“Paige suggested last night that we should check out the building’s history. See whether there have been any other crimes that happened there that might be connected.”
They'd all been pleased, and relieved, that Paige had come last night. Jack had been there the afternoon she’d been attacked, arriving shortly after Ryan had found someone beating her. She had looked as close to death as he’d ever seen without proving to be fatal. Getting her out of her house to do
anything other than physical therapy was almost impossible these days. Everyone was worried about her, and Jack wasn't sure she was ready to go back to work next month, but he understood why she wanted to. When they’d been talking about the case last night, Paige had immediately begun to relax and seemed almost like her old self.
Only she wasn't her old self. No one could be beaten nearly to death and come out of it emotionally unscathed. Especially given Paige’s history with a stalker as a child. When she’d been a teenager, her mother had had a stalker, who after repeated rejections had come to their house one night, tied up her mother and siblings before attempting to rape fourteen-year-old Paige. Her father had arrived home in time to stop it and had shot and killed him, but the damage had been done. Paige had been permanently traumatized and they were all concerned that recent events were going to push her over the edge. She had suffered a breakdown after the attack when she was a kid and no one wanted to see it happen a second time.
So far, she was managing to keep it together, but all the warning signs were there. She didn’t sleep, she didn’t eat regularly, she was hypervigilant, she had flashbacks. Everyone was watching her closely for signs of worsening post-traumatic stress disorder. Jack knew Paige’s husband, Elias, was particularly worried about her, and that both Ryan and Rose visited her almost daily, and he made a mental note to do his part and try and check up on her more regularly.
“Not to get distracted,” Rose interjected, her green eyes mirroring the concern he knew were in his, “but I don’t think Paige is ready to go back to work. She’s still avoiding. She won't talk about it at all. Not with anyone. Not Elias, not Ryan, not me.”
“Is she getting worse?”
“No, but she’s not really getting any better. She hasn’t been back to the precinct since it happened—I don’t know how she’s going to cope when she finally does.”